I have followed all the steps listed out in the "how to" on installing vMX v17. Once I start the VFP the output hangs at the "Select kernel options and boot kernel" menu. The only item you are able to choose is "Serial Console".

Once you select serial console it begins to boot and stops almost immediately. Below is the output.
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Loading vmlinuz... ok
Loading initrd...ok
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When I check the unl_wrapper.txt log the only error I see is. All other logs are clean.
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Jan 11 07:22:50 ERROR: QEMU Arch is not set (80015).
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The VCP boots properly and Im able to access JUNOS. But since the VFP never boots, no interfaces appear for use.

I have also successfully gotten the vSRX v15, and Junos Space to boot, show interfaces and interact with the internet.

visited the FAQ to load those images correctly (i think), 3 vCPU and 4G of RAM allocated (default). Curious if anyone else has noted similar boot issues. As mentioned in previous post, I can get the VCP to boot, along with an EOS image and a vSRX 15.1X OK.

I ran into similar situation when i switched from a dedicated Ubuntu server for eve to vmware. After building the vmware vm from the eve iso, i copied my unetlab folder over and opened my lab. Everything worked but the vfp nodes, got stuck at initrd when booting. After hours of tinkering I changed the qemu version on the node config from tpl(2.4.0) to 2.6.2 and it boots fine now.